Master the Elements uses a square, 8” by 8” board, 24 double-sided wooden Element tokens, and 10 colorful Element cards. It also includes a custom “Master the Elements” scoring pad. Players start by each drawing a secret Element card – whichever element is represented on this card is the element for which that player can collect points at the end of the round. The board starts out empty, with all Element tokens mixed up and spread out around the edges of the board. Players take turns stacking and stealing element tokens and piles to shift the balance of the elements in their favor. The top element on any pile must match the corner of the board in which the pile is placed, however, as players stack Master tokens and strategically combine piles, even the element with the fewest tokens at the beginning of a round can end up with the largest piles at the end. Alliances are tentatively made and broken as secret element cards are revealed and concealed, and chaos battles with strategy as each player tries to become the Master of the Elements. Once the last token is placed, all game-play freezes and the round ends. Players tally up their scores (including bonus points for placing the last token) and reshuffle the cards and tokens to start again! Whoever gains the most points at the end of 4 rounds of play is crowned the winner and Master of the Elements! —description from the designer